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Connecting Interfaith Families to Jewish Life in Greater Cleveland by providing programs and opportunities for interfaith families to experience Judaism in a variety of venues, meet other interfaith families, and to connect to other Jewish organizations that may serve their needs.

For Program Providers

A great way for Jewish professionals and volunteers who work with and provide programming for people in interfaith relationships to locate resources and trainings to build more welcome into their Jewish communities; connect with and learn from each other; and publicize and enhance their programs and services.

Jose and I let out squeals of joy, called our families and started to hold on tight for what would inevitably be a wild ride.

We found out about the contest through Jose’s coworker back in January, and we took our time to write a thoughtful statement, answering the prompt of how we volunteer and give back to our community. Jose and I both volunteer, so we thought we had a pretty good shot, but to actually win seemed totally crazy.

We had not done any wedding planning until that point and we were taking our time, planning on a long engagement. I wanted to enjoy being engaged and I didn’t want to start researching and choosing vendors. I was also having a hard time accepting how much an average wedding costs.

When we won the wedding it changed everything (how could it not?). Our venue and food plus vendors including the florist, photographer/videographer, gown, officiant, life coaching and more would be mostly free. The stress and financial worries of planning a wedding were diminished and we could instead focus on the fun stuff and enjoy the process. It was such a blessing.

I decided to approach the entire experience differently from the start. For my wedding gown shopping, I invited my mom, sister and a few bridesmaids to join. Since my gown was included in the prize package and it was from one of the best shops in Philly, Lovely Bride, I knew I wouldn’t be shopping around. So I asked one of my bridesmaids to bring a bottle of champagne to make the shopping experience a celebration!

As I tried on dress number three, and we were all gathered in the room together, my bridesmaid Madison, a certified sommelier who knows how to properly open a bottle, popped the champagne. And, because anything that can happen will, it EXPLODED all over the dressing room. It went on the ceiling, the walls, the floor, in her eyes and on all of the women in the room. It kept dripping from the ceiling onto me in a wedding dress. It left no area untouched. The entire bottle exploded. It was like something out of a movie. We later found out that the wine shop had kept the bottle in the freezer (Why? Who knows!).

My sister smartly took a photo while the situation unfolded!

The silence that filled the room was palpable, seemingly so thick you could touch it. A record started playing on repeat in my head: You now have to pay for this free dress. You now have to pay for this free dress.

A few frightening minutes passed, and my mom blurted out, “I have to clean something. Give me SOMETHING to clean.” At which point the owner of the shop, the lovely Ivy Kaplin, started hysterically laughing. It was just too funny to not laugh. A sales associate was Swiffering the ceiling as I stood motionless and drenched in a wedding dress, and what else could we do but bask in the complete absurdity of the situation? Ivy and her associates were the coolest people I have ever met and didn’t charge us for the mishap. They took it in stride and we were all laughing about it moments after it happened. Not only do I have quite a story to tell, but I also found the wedding dress of my dreams and it was not covered in champagne!

We’ve had an amazing time meeting with our vendors and thanking them for their services. We are thrilled to have the fantastic Jill Magerman, a certified Life Cycle Celebrant who happens to specialize in interfaith weddings, as our officiant. She invited us over for a Mother’s Day brunch at her house (how cool is that?) and we talked for hours about what traditions we will incorporate from each of our religious and cultural backgrounds. We talked about Jewish traditions like standing under a chuppah (a four-post structure meant to symbolize the home), signing a ketubah (the Jewish marriage contract), breaking the glass (meant to symbolize the fragility of marriage, among many other things) and reading the sheva brachot (seven blessings for the couple’s marriage).

We talked about Filipino and Catholic traditions, like being wrapped in a cord and veil (symbolizing the union of the couple, the bond they share and the purity of their love), presenting arras (coins that symbolize prosperity and the couple’s commitment to mutually contributing to their relationship, their children and their community), and incorporating a unity ceremony, the details of which we have yet to determine. We also plan on incorporating Filipino traditions throughout the ceremony and reception, but I can’t give away all the good details!

We’ve also met with the fabulous Vito Russo, VP at Carl Alan Designs, who is providing intricate and beautiful floral arrangements for the ceremony and reception. We are absolutely in love with his work, and we couldn’t have asked for a better florist. It’s uncanny how closely his style aligns with ours, and we didn’t even choose him! It must be beshert (Yiddish for “meant to be”)! This adventure is sure to bring on more excitement, funny stories, challenging obstacles and plenty to discuss and for which to be grateful. If you keep reading, hold on, it is going to be a wild ride!

Steven and I were married in an outdoor Catholic and Jewish celebration on May 23, 2015. The ceremony itself was the biggest black box for us when planning our wedding and we hope sharing how we brought our two faiths together into an interfaith ceremony helps anyone else trying to decode this process.

Steven was raised Jewish and I’m a born and raised and practicing Catholic. We wanted faith as part of our ceremony and we also wanted to make sure it represented us and was welcoming and inclusive for our families and friends in attendance.

With some work, the help of great people and some luck, we pulled it off.

The Ceremony

Steven’s parents are really involved in their Jewish community and through those connections found us a local rabbi, Lev Baesh that they thought we would like. It just so happens that Lev has a long history with InterfaithFamily and continues to work as a consultant with the organization. Steven and I both really value sustainability, so when we found out that Lev has solar panels on his house and chickens in his backyard, we felt like things would work out. The first time we met him for coffee (and to “interview” him) he said two things that stuck with us through the planning process:

1. Many of the major religious milestones (or sacraments in the Catholic world) recognize things that have already happened—baptism/ naming ceremonies (the baby is already born), funerals (the person is already dead) and in the case of marriage, two people have already made the decision to be together and the ceremony is to officially recognize it. Knowing this took some pressure off of us—we’d already been through the hard part of finding each other and figuring out that we wanted to be together forever. The ceremony was the cherry on top.

2. The ceremony is the first real opportunity to set the tone for how religion is going to look in your newly formed two-person family. That observation actually added a little more pressure, but also helped us find a framework as we came to decision points when planning the ceremony. For example, while I had written a word-by-word ceremony, our officiants both wanted the opportunity to speak in their own words, reflecting the sentiment we put forth in the draft. When we looked at our framework, we decided we wanted our faith journey to have room for flexibility and to be genuine and personal, so we agreed to let our officiants speak from the heart (that ended up being a GREAT decision—more on that later).

We found our priest through the recommendation of a friend who served on the Board of Directors for the Interfaith Action of Central Texas. I like the priest at my longtime Catholic parish, but I wasn’t sure he had the personality we needed for an interfaith ceremony. It can also be challenging to have the Bishop recognize an interfaith, outdoor marriage. Luckily, Father Larry Covington knew how the system worked and helped guide us through the process which included the required paperwork as well as Pre-Cana, multiple pre-marriage preparation meetings a Catholic couple goes through. He also made us feel at ease about an interfaith ceremony and marriage. Oh, and he speaks some Hebrew, which came in handy (see list below).

The Rituals

We decided on a mix of Catholic and Jewish traditions as well as things we just thought would be cool. Here’s what we ended up doing:

Both of my parents walked me in; both of Steven’s parents walked in with him (Jewish tradition)

Our dog was in the wedding party, holding the rings on her collar

We got married under a chuppah (the canopy structure present in traditional Jewish weddings). My father made it for us and personalized it by using Longhorn and Duke bed sheets as the canopy covering, paying homage to our alma maters

The priest and rabbi each gave a welcome and a blessing

We invited seven friends to give a blessing of their choosing, a twist on the traditional

The priest said the traditional vows, the rabbi did the exchange of rings

Steven and I wrote and said our own additional vows to each other

We did the Jewish stomping of the glass at the end of the ceremony

The singing of a prayer in Hebrew: We lucked out—our priest did this part and wow’d everyone!

Tips

Here are a few additional resources and things we did that were helpful:

Lots of communication with our guests: We emailed all of those attending the wedding to give them the heads up that our wedding would have a rabbi, priest and a dog. It really helped people know what to expect.

Lots of communication with our parents: We especially wanted to make sure our parents felt good about the ceremony since we were the first interfaith couple in our immediate families. We gave the opportunity in the beginning of planning to share anything they really wanted in the ceremony. We also shared the ceremony document with our parents in advance and they appreciated it.

Ceremony: It wasn’t easy to find more than an outline of a ceremony, but we did find one from InterfaithFamily that we really liked. Here it is.

Vows: In addition to the traditional vow exchange, we also wanted to say our own words to each other. We worked off of this listand made the vows our own.

I’ve been absent from the IFF blog for the past month or so, dealing with some health issues that kept me a bit too busy for wedding planning—or reflecting.

While I’ve dealt with doctor’s appointments and missed deadlines at work, I’ve had a mental image of a calendar with pages flying by—each representing a day of wedding planning that we’ve missed. But, honestly, none of that really matters. What matters is the fact that, with the support of family and friends, we’ll make it there together—the details of what the wedding day will look like are substantially less important. After all, that’s what it means when you choose love.

At a recent doctor’s appointment a nurse smiled at Justin, as she said to me, “you’ve got a good one sticking by you through this.” Justin’s response was instantaneous: “well, she’s sure had her share of being by my side in similar situations.”

It’s true. Only four months after we met I was by Justin’s side, calling 911 when he was injured, holding his hand as he came to after a 7 hour surgery, and traveling almost every other week between Boston and Philadelphia as he spent three months in a rehabilitation hospital relearning how to walk.

We’ve been testing the traditional marriage vow of “in sickness and in health” through the course of our relationship.

We haven’t actually made it to the point of planning where we are addressing vows (which, as we’ve learned, are traditional in Christian ceremonies but not in Jewish ceremonies), but we both know that this concept isn’t new to us. We’ve committed to holding up our relationship through adventures and health, and through the lows of sickness and injuries.

So, the countdown is on. We need to order rings. We need to design our invites. We need to pick out a ketubah. Finalize our huppah design. We need to pick out food. And figure out what to wear. And how to light our venue. And order flowers. And learn how to dance. The list is long, but we’ll get it done.

After all, those are just details. We’ve already worked out the important things.

How do you #ChooseLove?Show us through InterfaithFamily’s fun new campaign! Watch this video to see how other people #ChooseLove.

Jose and I met six years ago in Washington, DC, on a co-ed soccer team. After a few weeks and a carefully worded Facebook message, Jose invited me to a DC United soccer game with his friends, and I did not realize it was a date until he called and offered to pick me up. He showed up at my door smiling, looking relaxed and confident, like he had been waiting for me all along. I felt the same, and I could not wait to see where this went.

We were serious from the start, so when Jose told me he was applying to law school, I told him I would move with him wherever he went. After a year of dating, we moved to Philadelphia and he started law school at Temple University. We were excited to start our life together in Philly.

Because our relationship was intense early on and we were moving to a different city, we had to confront our religious and cultural differences right away. Jose is Filipino and Catholic, and I am Jewish. I remember a few times in the first few months when I cried, convinced that our relationship wouldn’t work and that our differences would break us up. Jose and I would always talk about it and we would arrive at a place knowing we could work it out no matter the issue.

In six years together, Jose and I have lit Hanukkah candles, celebrated Easter, taken interfaith classes, witnessed a First Communion, hosted Shabbat dinner, talked about how we will raise our kids, bought a Christmas tree and ornaments, joined a Reform synagogue, and so much more. We are a team, and we talk often about how our team will support and honor both of our backgrounds.

This past December, Jose got down on one knee in Rittenhouse Square, on the seventh night of Hanukkah. And this coming December, exactly one Hebrew calendar year later, we will get married at the Loews Hotel in Philadelphia.

Stay tuned for more details about our wedding planning over the next few months!

Blessings have been on my mind lately. In the Jewish wedding ceremony there are seven blessings recited, and, for better or for worse, I’m finding them complicated. Which is why, when our house started to shake during a thunderstorm the other night, I was already awake turning blessing after blessing over and over in my mind.

Photo by Justin Hamel

The thunder rolled, the lightning flashed, and my mind immediately went to the damage that we’d seen this winter, wondering if this storm would re-expose those leaks. After a few minutes of almost deafening rain, my mind finally slowed past its catastrophic style thinking to an appreciation of all of the noises, smells, and feelings that accompany a thunderstorm.

I was thankful for the rain that we receive here in New England, as opposed the droughts that are impacting so much of our world. I was thankful that I was inside, and lucky enough to be safe from the elements. I was grateful to be cuddled up under my blanket next to my sleeping partner, with my sleeping cat in the nook behind my knees.

I noticed Justin stirring from his sleep. “Good thunderstorm,” he muttered to himself.

It might seem simplistic, but right there… that was a blessing.

One of the pieces of Jewish learning I’ve most taken to heart is the idea that a prayer should speak to what is truly in your heart—the trappings of the words matter a whole lot less. (This idea seems particularly relevant when coming at the idea of one religion’s prayer from a multi-faith lens.)

Which is why we’re going to take the seven blessings and take them from complicated ideas to a simple “good thunderstorm” style message. But we need your help.

We’re asking seven of our friends to craft their own blessings based on the meaning of the originals. They’ll then be recited in the original Hebrew by our rabbi. What matters to us is less of the traditional language (we’ll have our bases covered by our rabbi’s recitations), but the sentiments passed along by the friends reciting the blessings.

Here’s where we’re asking for your help: if you were to simplify the following prayers to one word, what would it be?

Blessed are You, Adonai our God, Ruler of the Universe, Creator of the fruit of the vine.

Blessed are You, Adonai, our God, Ruler of the universe, Who has created everything for your glory.

Blessed are You, Adonai, our God, Ruler of the universe, Who has fashioned human beings in your image, according to your likeness and has fashioned from it a lasting mold. Blessed are You Adonai, Creator of Human Beings.

Bring intense joy and exultation through the ingathering of Her children (Jerusalem). Blessed are You, Adonai, are the One who gladdens Zion(Israel) through Her children’s return.

Gladden the beloved companions as You gladdened Your creatures in the garden of Eden. Blessed are You, Adonai, Who gladdens this couple.

Blessed are You, Adonai, our God, Ruler of the universe, Who created joy and gladness, loving couples, mirth, glad song, pleasure, delight, love, loving communities, peace, and companionship. Adonai, our God, let there soon be heard in the cities of Judah and the streets of Jerusalem the sound of joy and the sound of gladness, the voice of the loving couple, the sound of the their jubilance from their canopies and of the youths from their song-filled feasts. Blessed are You Who causes the couple to rejoice, one with the other.

In 2011, TheKnot.com surveyed almost 20,000 newlywed women. They found that only 8 percent kept their last names. Of the remaining 92 percent, 86 percent took their partner’s last name. Six percent hyphenated or created a new last name.

While I’ve seen other studies that show the percentage of women who keep their last names at closer to 20 percent, the fact remains: Changing your name after marriage is the “normal” thing to do.

Changing my name has never felt like the right move for me—my last name is the one on my degrees, it’s part of the name of my photography business, it’s the name I’ve written under, and, it’s the name I’ve used my entire life. I’ve given this some serious thought. I support a person’s right to choose the name that feels like the best fit for them, and I understand the idea that a unified last name presents a unified team.

But, for me, changing my name just doesn’t feel right.

(It also should be noted, that Justin isn’t up for changing his last name either. My last name is hard to spell, and he’s spent too long building his brand to change his name to something else. I don’t think this is a conversation only half of a couple should be having—if name changes are on the table, they should be on the table for everyone.)

It wasn’t until recently, when concepts like name changes shifted from hypothetical to reality, did something click for me. Changing my last name would mean separating my name from my family’s name—and taking a step away from my Jewish identity.

I know that marrying Justin, who isn’t Jewish, won’t make me any less Jewish.

It won’t make our home any less Jewish; it won’t invalidate the mezuzah hanging on the door, or make my observance of holidays any less meaningful.

It won’t make my work any less Jewish; it won’t tarnish my past community organizing, nor will it make my work with Keshet and commitment to full LGBTQ inclusion in the Jewish community less authentic.

Taking Justin’s last name wouldn’t make me any less Jewish… but it feels that way.

Jordyn’s grandparents celebrating a wedding anniversary.

As an Ashkenazi Jew, with a very classically Ashkenazi Jewish last name, my name is a calling card. Rozensky, with its “rozen” and its “sky,” shouts Jewish. I can trace its Jewish history. My name comes with a connection to my people—not just in the sense of “the chosen people,” but also in the way it connects me to previous generations of Rozenskys. I’m not ready to step away from that tradition.

There will be plenty of compromises made in our marriage; after all, meeting each other halfway is an important part of keeping a relationship working. But when it comes to our names—which hold such important aspects of our identities—compromise doesn’t seem like the best bet.

I don’t want anyone to panic, but we’re nearly at the six-month mark. Six months until….holy moly matrimony. Luckily, we’ve figured a few things out. Like that big question: who will officiate the ceremony?

I have a soapbox I could stand on to discuss how bananas I think that is, but I’ll save that for another time—that’s more of an in-person rant.

I don’t think our situation is very unique—unless you have very active ties to a religious institution, finding an officiant means doing a little research and a little legwork. It means thinking about the type of person you want setting the tone for your ceremony—what readings will they recommend? What customs do you want in place? How much flexibility will there be with traditions? Will they be funny? Somber? Will they quote the Princess Bride? Will they be OK with the fact that your partner isn’t Jewish? The list goes on and on.

Jordyn with one of her fantastic rabbi friends.

For us, we wanted someone who knows us well. We’re actually lucky in the fact that I count in my closest circle of friends not one, not two, but three rabbis. And, one of Justin’s best friends was at one point ordained in an online ceremony in order to perform weddings.

So, finding someone who knows us well enough to help tailor a ceremony to our inter-faith, egalitarian, not-so-traditional-social-norm needs wasn’t as big of a challenge as we first assumed.

All of these considerations led us to sit down with one of my friends from college, Rabbi Becky Silverstein, to discuss the idea of his performing the ceremony.

Working with Becky has a few obvious advantages: since he serves in the official role of “One of Jordyn’s Best Friends in the Whole Wide World,” he has already implicitly agreed to help field any pre (and post) wedding melt downs. So, on the trust level, we’re good. This is someone who knows us well.

And, Rabbi Silverstein is the type of rabbi we’d want to work with even if we didn’t know him personally—smart, kind, and actively working to make the Jewish world more inclusive for the queer community. Rabbi Silverstein is one of the very few openly transgender rabbis in America, and both Justin and I are inspired by his courage.

Becky and Jordyn; photos taken by Justin in the summer of 2013

You’d think asking one of your best friends to be the rabbi at your wedding would mean you’d get a pass on the tough questions—but Rabbi Silverstein asked us to think about the same things he’d ask any couple.

The three of us spoke about what role Judaism played in our lives, how we would continue to support each other in our religious practices, and why we wanted to have a Jewish ceremony—all good questions to set the tone for planning your ceremony. Actually, and perhaps more importantly, these are all good questions for setting the tone for your life as a partners. Talking with Becky reminded us that no matter what, communicating with each other as we explore faith, religion and community is so incredibly important for a healthy and supportive relationship.

Now, with just over six months to go, we’re pulling together the little details and asking some of the bigger questions. We’ve got our officiant. We’ve got our ceremony location. Next weekend I’ll be marking the start of Passover and Easter by going dress-shopping with family. I think we’re going to pull this off.

Where do you get married when you don’t officially “belong” anywhere? This question, which seems rather dramatic, was the first hurdle of wedding planning.

Here are some places that we quickly checked off the list:

– A rotating wedding with stops at each temple or church where a friend of ours works as a rabbi and/or spiritual leader: problematic mostly as this particular world wide wedding tour would probably require a month long commitment for any wedding participant.

– My very first truly Jewish home, the Smith College Kosher Kitchen: while the space is filled with amazing memories of learning how to braid challah, welcoming Shabbat, and being part of true community, it’s not exactly equipped for a wedding shindig.

– The churches that Justin attended growing up: a destination wedding wasn’t something we were 100% opposed to, but asking family to trek out to the winding trail of places he called home (from Ohio to South Dakota back to Ohio and on to Pennsylvania) as he grew up wasn’t exactly practical.

After all, as an interfaith couple with varied roots and no shared official physical spiritual home, there is no obvious, easy answer. And, as we look to bring together a diverse group of family and friends, we want to avoid the “eek” feeling that often accompanies being in someone else’s religions home base. (We’re introducing enough new things as it is!)

Our dramatic question of belonging (or a lack thereof) answered itself when we took a different tact to planning. When we rephrased the question from “where do you get married when you put religious tradition in the center” to “where do you get married when you put your own relationship in the center” the options started to reveal themselves.

A ceremony in a science museum? Why not? (Unless there are mummies—I have an irrational fear of mummies.)

A ceremony on a boat? Sure! (Weather permitting. And is one allowed to be both captain and bride?)

A ceremony in an abandoned theater with no lights, no running water, and a more than fine layer of dust? Yes. That’s the winner.

When we looked at locations that had significance to us, a vacant theater became the obvious choice. Justin has been a part of a community of urban explorers for far longer than I’ve known him, and I’ve come to appreciate the beauty that is found in a place paused in time. We are people who, individually and as a couple, value adventure, the offbeat, finding experiences that might not jive with the norms—and so this feels more like “us” than any church or synagogue we might find.

I wouldn’t go as far as saying that this is where we find our “sacred” … but, there is something holy about appreciating glamour where someone else might not look twice.

Taking a space, one that has been forgotten by its surroundings, and stepping back is a powerful experience. There’s beauty in seeing a place for what it once was, what it is now, and what it could be. (And, isn’t that the essence of a relationship? Appreciating all steps of the journey?) For us, the idea of transforming a quiet, slightly downtrodden theater into a site for a ceremony just makes sense. We’re adding the lights, we’re bringing in the huppah, but the magic of the building was already there.

Today’s blog post brings us well into wedding planning process—as well as to a few other relationship landmarks.

The birthday King Cake

Last week we celebrated Justin’s birthday, which we do in a traditional (to him, not so much to me) way—with a King Cake. The King Cake is a Mardi Gras custom (Mardi Gras being part of the Carnival celebrations that occur immediately before the observance of Lent)—and Justin’s family has roots in the Bayou of Louisiana.

With his birthday falling so close to Mardi Gras each year, it’s become a tradition for his Grandparents (who live just over the Louisiana border in Mississippi) to send him a King Cake.

Before meeting Justin I’d never had a King Cake. Now it’s something I look forward to each year. This purple, green, and gold cake is topped with frosting and sugar, and from the time it arrives until we’ve eaten it all, every meal involves cake. Breakfast, lunch, dinner, mid-day, and midnight snacks all involve King Cake. (And, as we are adults, we have deemed it okay if one wants to have a slice of cake before dinner.)

The most important part of the King Cake—besides it being delicious and often arriving in the same box as Mardi Gras beads—is that it comes with a plastic baby Jesus hidden inside the cake. It’s good luck if you find the baby in your piece of cake.

And, every year that we’ve celebrated with a King Cake, I’ve always ended up Jesus-less.

The King Cake baby.

Somehow that plastic baby is always in one of Justin’s slices of cake. (Perhaps there’s a secret to finding the King Cake baby that I’ve missed out on? My ability to always find the Afikoman at a Passover Seder does not seem to translate to the King Cake’s hidden Jesus.)

Justin’s Jesus finding skills did, however, set us up for a fantastically cheesy exchange this year about how he was the one with the luck—thus he gets to marry me—and I was the one without the luck—hence I was stuck marrying him.

This year, we’re hoping that little plastic baby Jesus is going to bring us some mutual luck—especially as we move from the theoretical planning into actually putting the plan into action.

I love telling our “how we met” story, because if you don’t know us, it’s pretty unexpected. And, if you do know us, well, our beginnings make a lot of sense.

Justin & Jordyn in Guatemala

We met three years ago in Guatemala City, both having traveled there for a photography workshop. My first impression of Justin was that he was a skinny hipster. (You’ll have to ask him what his first impression of me was.)

On (what we now realize was our first date) we climbed an active volcano just outside of Antigua. At the top we roasted marshmallows on the volcano’s natural heat sources and felt like we were on a completely new planet. On the way down, distracted by taking pictures and pausing to climb trees, we got momentarily separated from the group and started practicing, in our very limited Spanish vocabulary, the phrases we might need to get a ride back into town. Eventually, we found our bus back.

Afterwards, covered in dirt, we went out for dinner.

A few months later, on a camping trip in Pennsylvania, Justin broke his T-12 vertebrae and severed his spinal cord incompletely. After being life flighted to a hospital, a seven-hour surgery, and a week in the ICU, we both felt the intensity and realness of our relationship. (I’ve written previously for IFF about how I processed praying for Justin, when our faiths were so different.) The next few months I traveled back and forth between Boston and the rehabilitation hospital in Philadelphia where he was recovering.

These days we live just outside of Boston in Salem, Massachusetts. We’re both photographers, and I’m part of the communications team at Keshet. Our day-to-day life of marathoning TV shows, looking for photography work, and teaching ourselves how to cook is punctuated by weekend adventures—it’s not abnormal for me to go into work on a Monday and answer the question of “what did you do this weekend” with “we ended up in the middle of New Hampshire and met some people who were ice fishing in the middle of a frozen lake…”

Our proposal story is the flip side of how we met—but, much like our first date, it makes complete sense if you know us.

There was no big romantic moment, but a long discussion. After several years of dating we knew how we felt about each other—the question was more how we felt about marriage. In many ways, deciding to get married made a lot of sense. In other ways, it was more of a stretch. We went back and forth about wedding hypotheticals and what would be important to each other. For me, having a Jewish ceremony was the most meaningful part of taking our commitment to the next level. For him, having a large gathering where all of our family and friends could be part of a celebration was essential.

Our decision to get married was just that—a joint, mutual decision. We both asked each other, we both agreed. We kept the news to ourselves for a while, just to see how it felt. A few weeks later we got a ring from my family, and we made it official. And, we’ve set a date: 9.26.15.

We’re pretty excited to share our story with IFF’s Wedding Blog. Storytelling—with photos and with words—is a big part of who we are. We’ll be navigating how to put together a ceremony that feels comfortable and right for my Judaism, appropriate to Justin’s secular belief, and understandable for all of our guests. We’re trying to plan something on a modest budget, and we’re hoping to do so without going crazy. I’m sure there will be some surprises along the way, but right now we’re looking forward to our next adventure.